Innovation: Behind the scenes at Sony's broadcast lab

It’s a commonplace assumption that media’s future lies on the web, but there are still innovations to come from broadcast media. That much was obvious when we had a look behind the scenes at Sony’s European Broadcast and Professional Research Labs, in Basingstoke, UK.

Evidence of that was on show on the “factory floor”, where outside broadcast vans are built for television firms across Europe, Asia and Africa. The trucks rolling off the production line this year are headed for South Africa, to broadcast next year’s soccer world cup to fans worldwide. All are capable of high-definition broadcasts, but none has 3D capabilities.

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From flat to 3D

One reason is that making 3D camera rigs is mechanically fiddly&colon; two cameras working in stereo are needed to make a 3D image, and the distance between them must vary as they zoom.

Sony labs in Japan revealed a prototype dedicated 3D camera just yesterday. But its UK engineers are hoping to sidestep the complications of stereo filming by making 3D footage from normal, “flat” video.

Rob Porter at Sony’s UK labs demonstrated how prototype software creates a slightly modified version of a video feed to simulate a second stereo viewpoint. To create the 3D effect, the virtual viewpoint has a different perspective to the real camera, which is simulated by mapping the real camera feed onto a crude virtual 3D map of the real scene, created beforehand.

Big picture

At present, this technique requires the camera to be static. But Porter used soccer stadium footage to show that doesn’t have to be a problem. The output of several static cameras can be stitched together like a panoramic photo and then transformed into a super-high-resolution 3D video feed. It’s possible to digitally pan across or zoom into the resulting 3D feed, giving the viewer the impression of a real 3D camera rig moving around, without actually having to use one.

The idea is that a software upgrade can quickly give an extra dimension to the sports coverage of a stadium that already has a video camera setup. So sports programmes look set to be the first to show off what 3D can offer – just as they were for HD and other innovations in home viewing.

Feed in hand

Upgrading stadiums is the goal of another project being worked up by the lab. It lets stadium-goers use their own gadgets – currently limited to Sony’s own PSP – to access real-time statistics and customisable video feeds and replays.

Trials are under way with fans of soccer team Arsenal, based in north London. The full service is due to launch there by the end of the current season, in the middle of next year.

The advent of large-scale video screens in stadiums changed the experience of attending&colon; giving fans their own personal screen could provide a similar shift, particularly if such services are opened out beyond Sony hardware. So far, though, there are only the vaguest of hints that other Wi-Fi-enabled gadgets will get the same treatment.

A similar project suggests that fans with a personal feed could one day add their own commentary. Sony’s Alan Turner demonstrated software that lets journalists in the field view live feeds from cameras elsewhere on a smartphone and annotate the video with text or voice as it’s recorded.